ew development of housing and commercial building projects has definitely slowed down in California over the past few years, and this of course has had an effect on contractors that are associated with this type of work. With this in mind, it would appear that this may not be the best time to start a utility underground or site development company.

Louie Giannini couldn’t disagree with this assessment more. He started his underground utility construction company in 2006 and has more than doubled his output in 2007. It’s not as if Louie Giannini just jumped into the business and hoped for the best, he as been involved in underground utility construction for more than 25 years now. Ever since he began working as a laborer at the age of 16, Louie has dreamed of owning and operating his own construction company. He learned the trade well by working for a variety of utility contractors, picking up experience and a very strong work ethic along the way.

Today, LG Engineering specializes in water, sewer and storm drain work for both the private and public sector. They perform work all over southern California, with the vast majority of their jobs being located in the Inland Empire. Currently LG Engineering is working on their largest job to date, installing all of the onsite and offsite utilities at the Ontario Town Center Redevelopment Project in Ontario, California.

The Ontario Town Center project is a public-private partnership with the City of Ontario and is part of an ongoing effort to revitalize the City’s core. This master-planned development will consist of a new town center for Downtown Ontario, as well as the construction of 376 new condos, 140 new town-homes and an 80,000 sq. ft. retail facility. J. H. Snyder Company, one of the nations leading builders, is the general contractor on this project is estimated at $180 million and is scheduled to be completed in 2010. Louie Giannani comments, “Working with Dan Ward and the J. H. Snyder staff was a positive experience and helped to make this job a success.”

LG Engineering’s portion of the project will run around $3.7 million by completion. The job includes running utilities to 140 condo units located on less than 5 acres, which makes for a pretty tight job. The project is slightly complicated by the fact that it is being built where previous structures once existed and needed to first be demolished and cleared.   Louie Giannini explains, “When you are doing redevelopment work, it is like working in a previously built city. We are presented with quite a few challenges like existing utilities that we have to work around. You never know what you are going to find until you start digging. We had run into existing fuel tanks on the Ontario job, which involved removal and environmental cleanup. We also came across a good bit of asbestos storm drainpipe, which had to be extracted and remediated properly. We used a large professional company, who repeatedly tested the quality of air and fully contained the area throughout the entire process.” In the end everything was removed and the job went on as planned, except for the $100,000 cleanup change order.

(Above) Case 9050 excavator trenching for storm drain.

(Above) Attention to detail and textbook procedures on every job keeps LG Engineering operating safely and on schedule.

(Above) LG Engineering uses their Case CX80 mini excavator to trench for water pipes.

(Above) Case CX80 trenching for water pipes.

In addition to underground challenges, LG Engineering also faced a few above-ground situations.
Circumstances like working right in front of Ontario City Hall where all eyes were upon them all day, every day. Louie comments, “We always operate by text book procedures and nothing is more important than safety on our jobs. Even so, the pressure of working right there in front of Ontario City Hall was at times a bit stressful.”

According to Louie the rest of the job was pretty much standard. By the end of December they will have installed approximately 3,000 linear feet of storm drain, 6,000 linear feet of water line and another 3,000 feet of sewer. In all there are around 13 LG Engineering employees currently on this job.

Four of these individuals are equipment operators and they primarily use Case equipment to get the job done. Giannini adds, “I started out long ago on Case machinery and I have just always believed that Case offered the best equipment on the market for our type of work. I deal with Ken Taylor with D3 out of their Fontana branch office. He pretty much handles all of our sales and rental needs.”

In all, LG Engineering’s fleet consists of several Case machines. They own and operate three Case excavators, a 5090, a 290 and a CX80 excavator which is more compact for those tight spaces. In addition LG Engineering owns a few 621 wheel loaders and several 590 backhoes. The equipment however is just a part of the puzzle that comes together to make LG Engineering one of Southern California’s up and coming preferred contractors. They also have 15 dedicated full-time employees that give it their all each and every day. Chris Horkey is Louie’s right hand man and is the Superintendent for the company. Frank Gutierrez is the company’s Foreman, while Kate Paterson takes on the very important responsibility as the Safety Director for the company. In addition there are four experienced and very professional operators, an entire crew of pipe layers and general laborers, and two very competent administrative assistants located back at the headquarters in Yucaipa, California.

LG Engineering has been involved in many other projects since their inception back in 2006. Louie explains, “The two jobs that really got us started were the Fontana Crossings project and the Yucaipa Retirement development. We were working on both these jobs at the same time, which was a real challenge, however the $1.5 million dollar combined value really helped to get us started out right.” LG Engineering performed all of the utility storm drain, sewer and water on both of these projects.

Now two years in the business and currently at only 42 years of age, Louie Giannani is just getting started. Louie concludes, “We are looking to continue to grow and hope to double in size each year. We are looking to get more involved in the public sector. I have quite a bit of experience with this, as I worked in the Operating Engineers Union for many years. Our goal is to get more involved here. Cc